Yes, you may love your iPod or your streamed music through
your fancy-pants speakers, but are you aware there is music all around us for
free? Our grandparents called it ‘The Wireless’, a name our gadget obsessed
generation seems to have appropriated for our own uses. But what part does
radio play in our lives these days, when music is so easily available on-line?
Hopefully, it will continue to play a big part, thanks in no small part to the
Roberts Classic DAB Radio.
Digital radio has been around for a while now, with many of
us accessing the thousands of stations through our computers. But there is a
lot to be said for having an actual radio in your home, particularly if you’re
interested in hearing local stations and don’t want the occasional glitches inherit
in internet streaming.
This nifty boom box from British company Roberts is a small
and portable gadget that looks as modern as it does functional. It can be plugged
into the mains, or if you’re out in the garden, can run off batteries. Straight
out of the box and switched on, we happily discovered that the radio
automatically found all the available stations, displaying their names on the scrolling
blue back-lit LED. We were immediately able to save our favourite channels for
quick access later – no more fiddling with a dial to get the brain deadening
thunder of Radio One! Yay!
The quality of the sound was very good as well – not ground-breaking
like some other speakers we’ve reviewed – but still very good and, well,
exactly what you might expect from a digital radio. Sitting on the windowsill
of the kitchen while we did the dishes, the Roberts Classic DAB was a wonder to
behold, fuelling our domestic grind with clean sounds and crisp vocals. It won’t
fill your home with multi-layered music, but close up and in the same room, the
sounds were perfect.
Included in the unit is a headphone jack (which, with
headphones in, improved the quality of sounds as you might expect, creating a more
immersive feel) and a USB socket for future software upgrades. The mere fact
that this socket is included is a good sign – clearly Roberts are keen to keep
their existing range of radios up to date, and in a world where we’re constantly
being informed of changes to digital bandwidths and performance rights, this is
certainly a welcome addition.
Compact, easy to use and stylish, this is a radio that any tech
fan should welcome into their midst.
Around £40 depending on where you buy.
Visit www.robertsradio.co.uk